Beachley is bounded on either side by the rivers Wye and Severn, and by Offa’s Dyke to the north.
It is a small parish with a population of 764 in 2011 and, despite its position under the Severn Bridge, relatively difficult to access, as one has to take a route through Chepstow to reach it.
The aerial view is courtesy of cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Colin Park – geograph.org.uk/p/6402104
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As can be seen in the map, Beachley’s importance lay in its position, at the northern end of a Severn crossing.
The first record of a regular ferry is from AD 1131. It plied across at the narrow point between Aust to Beachley. This ferry route was maintained down the following centuries and is known as the Old Passage. The yellow line shows the route of the older Severn Bridge.
The alternative ferry route, across the English Stones, might, in fact, be the older of the two. However, it was closed by Cromwell, following the drowning of Parliamentary troops marooned on the English Stones in 1645. After it reopened in 1718, it became known as the “New Passage”. The red line shows the line of the new bridge.
The early ferries were not for the faint hearted. Daniel Defoe described the Old Passage crossing from Aust to Beachley as an “ugly, dangerous and very inconvenient ferry over the Severn”. Travelling to Wales in 1725, he decided that the alternative route via Gloucester was the safest and surest way, taking account of the weather and seeing the sorry state of the ferry boats at Aust;
“The sea was so broad, the fame of the Bore of the tide so formidable, the wind also made the water so rough, and which was worse, the boats to carry over both man and horse appeared so very mean, that, in short, none of us cared to venture. So we came back, and resolved to keep on the road to Gloucester”.
More information about the Severn crossings can be found in https://severnbridges.org/history-of-estuary-crossings/
The use of the image is by the permission of ARCHI UK Website (https://www.archiuk.com) (ARCHI Information Systems Ltd).
Offa’s Dyke forms the northern boundary of the parish, running from a high cliff opposite Chepstow to Sedbury Cliff on the other side of the peninsula. It is believed that it was constructed in the early 5th century, and, in Beachley, was built to leave the Welsh in control of the ferries and possibly some sort of up-river timber trade.
The scant ruins of the chapel of St Tecla, for a period joined by a navigation light (now removed).
The first written evidence of the chapel was in 1290, when a Benedictine monk was licensed to celebrate mass here. The name of the saint changed many times.
There were various references to it over the years, until, in 1535, it was reported as being useless because it stood in the sea.
As the river channels and sea levels changed over the centuries, the chapel became isolated and inaccessible and, in 1750, a proposal was made by Ralph Allen of Prior Park, Bath, to rebuild it. The plan was thwarted by the Lewis family of St Pierre who owned the site.
In the Civil War, Beachley was of great strategic importance since it commanded the crossing of the Severn.
In the First Battle of Beachley, in 1644, Prince Rupert, moving south after the defeat at Marston Moor on the 2nd July, was attempting to reach Bristol without passing the Parliamentary stronghold of Gloucester. Massey, the Governor of Gloucester, was determined to prevent this and destroy the ferry.
Massey won the day and was now determined to capture Monmouth. As part of his manoeuvres he tried to capture Beachley, which, at that point, was fortified by the Royalists, who defeated Massey.
It was decided by a council of war the Beachley could not be held without sea power and ordered that every building be destroyed and every tree and hedge cut down.
A fuller account is given in ‘Beachley between the Wye and the Severn’ by Ivor Waters. The map comes from the same source.
After the destruction of the Battles of Beachley in 1644, there were no places of worship on the peninsula.
In 1831 the Vicar of Tidenham set up a Chapel-of-Ease in the parish, funded by the Jenkins family, local landowners. This was perhaps in response to requests from non-conformists to set up places of worship in the area.
The chapel was closely associated with the family, and it contains many memorials to the family. It closed in 1998 and is now privately owned.
Next to the church is a military graveyard, which contains the graves of a large number of German and Italian prisoners of war.
The Churches and Chapels of the Parish of Tidenham, edited by Carol Clammer and Keith Underwood, holds further information, including a list of the Jenkins memorials in the church.
It is available from https://tidenhamhistory.co.uk/
Travellers using Beachley as a crossing-point for the Severn usually had little good to say of it, but in the early part of the 19th Century suddenly appreciated its virtues, saying that it was ‘remarkable for its early vegetation, the salubrity of the air, and the beauty of the surrounding scenery’.
James Jenkins (the owner of the parish) offered a premium of 20 guineas for a plan to lay out Beachley as a watering-place. There were to be dwelling-houses, shops and cottages, an observatory, a boarding house with a library, salt-water baths, and a chapel of ease. In the event, only the chapel of ease was built.
Guide books of 1907-8 called it the Chepstow Brighton.
German submarines sank so many British boats during WWI that in August 1917 the government began a National Shipyard at Beachley. The villagers were evicted with only 11 days notice and thousands of experienced shipbuilders were brought in from the North-East and the Clyde. There were also 6,000 Royal Engineers and thousands of German prisoners.
If you follow the link below, you can see a map of Beachley when the shipyards was in construction, with railway lines running everywhere.
The photo below is of ‘the biggest shed in the world’ which was later removed to Port Sunlight.
When the war ended and responsibility was taken from the Admiralty by the Government it was mooted that the Shipyard be taken over as a private enterprise, but the scheme foundered under the problems of employing military staff alongside civilians and it was closed in 1919.
The cost was over £2 million.
Garden Cities were planned at Pennsylvania and elsewhere to house the dock workers. The one in Pennsylvania cost £155,552 and was unfinished at the time of the dockyard closure. Below are views of some of the houses that were completed (taken on a very wet, miserable day).
The image on the top right shows where Offas Dyke (running away, on the left) was incorporated into the scheme.
The landscaping in the lower images was carried out by the celebrated landscape architect Avery Tipping.
In 1919 the War Office proposed to open a Central Training School for 1,000 apprentice tradesmen. Beachley was not the original choice of the Army Council, but in 1923 they found at Beachley a ready-made camp consisting of scores of huts, and a large area covered with surplus war material and a maze of railway lines.
The next year it opened the Boy’s Technical School at Beachley.
In 1994 all Army Apprentice Training was dispensed with by the Government of the day the last of the Beachley Boys passed out and moved on to their future career with the Regular Army. Beachley Camp as we knew it was no more and remained vacant for a while.
Until 2018 it acted as a barracks, and it is due to be sold in 2027. At present several asylum seekers are housed there.
There is an Old Boys Association, and a Visitor Centre that lovingly preserves the history of the College. For further information go to
Map courtesy of Keith Underwood
The chapel of St George is a distinctive building as one drives over the Severn Bridge. There were originally two other churches, St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Chapel (demolished 1999) and the Free Church Chapel of St David (demolished 1995).
The dedication of the church took place in 1964 and the last service was in 1994.
Its steeply pitched roof is over 17 metres high and was originally sheathed in copper, but subsequent leakage problems led to a complete re-cladding.
The distinctive font was made be apprentices at the Army Apprenticeship College.
It is not open to the public, and it is thanks to Chris Ricketts, of the Beachley Old Boys Association that I could view it.
Its future is uncertain, as, belonging as it does the the Ministry of Defence, it is not listed.
As early as 1824, Thomas Telford proposed a suspension bridge from Aust to Beachley, but the idea was judged as being too ambitious.
In 1923, another initiative was launched by the Chepstow Development Committee, so that traffic would by-pass the narrow streets of Chepstow and absorb the unemployed.
Eventually, the line of the bridge was identified in June 1947, but work was not begun until 1961 because the Forth Bridge was given priority. But this delay meant that much useful experience was gained.
It was necessary to build a viaduct over the peninsula which would not interfere with the college, and also a separate bridge over the Wye.
The whole structure was opened in 1966.
The building in the background was the one of the inns serving the ferry, and was, earlier, the vicarage. On the right is picture of the inn from the Severn.
